Happy Halloween

The kids had so much fun Trick or Treating this year. Jayla and Ethan were so excited and wanted to trick or treat until their buckets were full. Mom, Dad, and Colby didn't last that long. Ethan is Batman, Jayla is a cat, and Colby is a chef. I chose a chef for Colby since his favorite thing to do right now is to raid my utensil holder and carry spatulas and spoons all over the house. He insisted on taking a spatula to the store for some errands the other day and a clerk at one of the stores commented on how funny he was. I told her I was just glad it wasn't a pizza cutter.
We grew our own pumpkins this year for the first time, by mistake. When we planted the garden in the spring I let Jayla and Ethan take my left over seeds and plant their own garden in a different area. When things came up we had a mystery plant. So we watched it and at the end of summer it finally put on 3 fruits. As you can see they didn't quite get ripe but we were very excited to have grown them ourselves.

Labor Day Camping

Here are some highlights of our Camping trip Labor Day Weekend. It was so nice to be together with my family. We have done a lot of camping this year but all of it has been with our friends and family. My kids have gotten so used to camping with other families that this trip was almost to quiet for them. We got camp set up and Ethan came over to me and asked who was going to camp with us this time. When I told him no one he began to rattle off a list of families we could call to come and meet us. He makes me laugh.



This is me trying to be a professional photographer and get a cute picture of my kids piggies dangling in the creek next to camp. A funny story goes with this. You may be able to tell that Colby is in only a diaper and a towel. I had Jayla and Colby stripped down to bare feet sitting on the logs and was helping Ethan take off his shoes and socks. While Jayla was watching Colby, he leaned over to touch the water or something in the water and tumbled in. Luckily the creek is shallow and Jayla was quick to pull him out so he didn't make it completely under. Unfortunately for them, I was determined to get my cute picture so I made them all sit back on the bridge and let me get a few shots before they could go get new clothes on.

I love to catch Ethan smiling in pictures. If he knows you are taking a picture he doesn't smile so you have to be creative to get one out of him. In fact for this picture he turned around so I couldn't take a picture, so I told him I was going to take a picture of his booty, and that is what made him smile.

This is Colby only a few moments before I got my great picture idea . He is so cute on the log bridge. He is only holding that stick but it looks very much like he is fishing.

Jay posing, of course. She's a natural!


These two are goofy. I think we may have fed them too many smores but gees they are GOOD!

This picture may not be cool to most of you...but to me it is AWESOME. We have friends who go camping the same places we do and ALWAYS see mountain goats. I NEVER find goats, I NEVER see goats. I can't even see the ones other people find and try to show me. I do however, seem to spot every white rock on every mountain we visit. In fact there is a trail we often go on and every time I see the same white spot on the mountain hoping it is a goat and every time, it is the same white rock. So on the last 4-wheeler ride we went on before we went home I was bummed and whining because I just wanted to see one little tiny goat before our trip was over and not to long after, TA DA I found my very own goat, all by myself. So you may not appreciate my findings, I am fat and happy about it.

Jayla's 1st Day of School

Here's my little princess ready for the first day of school.

Little Crawler

Can you believe it, this little guy is already crawling. He follows me around all day and occasionally gets himself stuck between two pieces of furniture. One of his favorite things is to crawl to the back door and talk to the cat sitting outside begging to come in. Wade and I are taking bets as to when he is walking, it won't be long he just wants to GO!

A SURE SIGN OF A GREAT TIME!!

Wade and Ethan went to Nat-So-Pah for our ward's father and son campout. This is how I got my little boy back. He slept in the truck like this for another half hour while Wade unloaded the trailers. Ethan was covered in dirt from head to toe.

March Madness

Whoa!
This is going to be a long one. So much has happened the last month this could take a while.


Ethan get his tonsils out and gets to stay the day in the hospital.









A routine tonsillectomy and ear tubes turns into an all day observation. When Ethan came out of surgery he had a condition the doctors called Stridor which means he couldn't get air in and when he breathed out it sounded "musical" in his throat. They gave him steroids and put us under observation until his breathing got better. He was released that night but unfortunately the medicine wore off the next and we ended up in the ER the next day because once again....he was having trouble breathing. He is a lot better now. The tubes in his ears has made a MAJOR improvement in his hearing which is a relief for me because I got so tired of yelling at him all day just so he could hear me. It is true that the tone and volume of your voice makes a huge difference in the mood of your home. Things are much quiter now and I am not so frazzeled from all the yelling.

East egg hunt at our friends house.









The kids in their new Easter clothes










Grandpa Turns 80

We all gathered in Albion and surprised Grandpa Toner for his 80th birthday. It was great to have everyone together and get acquainted with those we don't see very often. Grandpa is such a special person in our lives and we are glad to spend time with him and Grandma.


During Spring Break we found out we had a water leak in the front yard.

We got a note on our front door informing us that the City had read our meter and it showed we had a leak and it was leaking 1 1/2 gallons per minute. OUCH! So I called Wade...he called his Dad...and by that night, they had the leak fixed. Unfortunately the City doesn't read meters in the winter so who knows how long the leak had been going on. Lets put it this way-the City told us our average reading is 8,000 gal and we were at 159,000 gal. Fortunately we worked with the City and didn't have to pay ALL of that. Thank heavens Wade is handy and his Dad is always willing to help us or the $5 part we had to replace would have cost us a lot more.

A battle with the furniture

On Sunday night, before the kids were getting ready for bed I was in the kitchen doing the dishes and I heard the loudest "SMACK" in the living room and then Ethan started crying. When I turned around he was holding his head, crying and his Dad was racing for him. As you can tell, Ethan's fight with the coffee table did not fair so good....the table won! Luckily today he can smile about it but OUCH! My head hurts just looking at his purple bump.

Colby's 1st Haircut

I gave Colby his first haircut. As you can see his hair was getting pretty Wild It was really weird for me..usually on a 4 month old you they are loosing their hair and you can't wait until it grows back. I had a hard time doing it, if you think about it, it is the hair he was born with.

SO SAD

He looks better now and more like a little man.

Christmas Hightlights 2008

ChristmasTree Cutting

One of our favorite family traditions at Christmas time is cutting our own Christmas tree. As part of that tradition I always try to get a family picture which is not always easy. We thought we had a SUPER one this year until we got home and took a closer look and saw that Colby looked like he was about to pitch a fit in all of them. Ahhh...a memory right.

Colby's first 4 wheeler ride

I showed the kids how to make snow lollipops just for fun. It was a good idea... at first. Ethan thought it was fun to fling the snow part at me. Then one of them must have gotten hungry because they decided it would be fun to EAT a snow lollipop. YUCK! Because it was dark, I convinced myself that what I couldn't see, won't hurt them.

As a part of our tree cutting tradition, we stay until dark so we can go to the south hills lights and feed the camel. Here is Ethan and Jayla in front of some of those lights.